


Burn

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: M/M, Spark Sexual Interfacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 16:14:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8851567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: Most of Starscream's insults may as well just be aimed at himself. Most of Carrion's pain is self-inflicted.





	1. Hello Pot, Meet Kettle

**Author's Note:**

> Old fic, edited and expanded.

Carrion has learned many important lessons from Starscream over the course of their acquaintance. Determination, cunning, thinking on the fly; he’s learned the art of deception well enough to convincingly lie whenever it’s required of him, even in the face of enormous punishment.

Though flighty, he can fight as well as anyone would expect a mech of his age and build to be capable of; at times he’s even surprisingly clever in battle, making a wonderful snipe or a brilliant hand-to-hand strike. This, too, is largely Starscream's doing, though Eks has contributed much to his understanding of weaponry.

He’s learned that wounds come and go, pain is fleeting, scars can be hidden and eventually patched, but a destroyed ego is a killed mech.

Starscream has ground these lessons into him, by one means or another. Working with their bond or straining painfully against it, he’s forced Carrion to grow up and make something useful of himself. Even if he’s the only one who can see how useful the small flier really is.

What Carrion finds is the lesson he’s most learned from Starscream, however, is instruction the other almost certainly had not intended to give. He’s learned to roll with the punches, both figurative and literal. To let the harsh criticism and cruel comments roll off his high-polished back like so much rain, and not let it bother him when the Air Commander calls him stupid, useless, or incompetent.

Of course, ignoring the larger mech is impossible. Partially because some part of Carrion, even after all these years, still loves the sound of that voice, and can’t help giving it some attention. And there’s also the fact that, as repetitive as Starscream can be, Carrion does occasionally have to participate in the conversation.

Right now, though, isn’t the best time for him to be paying attention to anything other than his own work. He doesn’t exactly know how he managed it, but he does know that his arm – well, the stump of it that’s still attached – is in a great deal of pain, and they’ve managed to get pinned down. For once, the unfavorable turn of the battle isn’t his fault; it’s merely bad luck. He fully expected Starscream to leave him to fend for himself – in all likelihood, the Autobots would have forgotten him – but Starscream has always been so predictably unpredictable. He’d swooped back down from the sky like a missile, and now provided the covered from under which Carrion was trying to repair himself.

Over the battle-noise; the laser fire, the explosions, the shouting and marching and whine of engines, Starscream is berating him. He calls him reckless, idiotically sentimental, berates him for sticking his neck out for the sake of their bond, all while firing nonstop back at the Autobot who has them pinned in this stupid canyon. 

All Carrion can think as his Commander snarls his criticism is, Hello, pot; have you met kettle?  But this is what he gets for using what little skill he’s picked up to save his bond-mate a few new scars; a neatly severed arm and absolutely no gratitude.

“Commander? Sweety?” He says, using the human pet name because he knows it prickles at his mate and even in pain he enjoys annoying the larger seeker. “I’m really sorry I got my arm shot off trying to keep you alive, but could you let me try to weld what’s left back on so we can get the fuck out of here?”

Just as it usually does, his unfathomably crude speech, intermingled with human colloquialisms, seems to stun the Air Commander into silence for a moment, leaving him to stare down at the smaller mech with something between anger, confusion, and disgust on his face.

The battle reasserts itself, as it always must, but Starscream focuses less on his lecture and more on keeping their defense up. Gritting his teeth in pain, but not without a little humor, Carrion returns to salvaging his arm.


	2. Punishment

Maybe it could be considered a talent, Carrion didn’t know, the way he and Starscream could slip from rage to romance in the space of a few kliks. There was always a tension between them; violent or sexual, it depended on the circumstance.

It really wasn’t fair, because while Carrion always felt he was playing catch-up, Starscream was completely in control of himself. He could turn the tables on the smaller jet before Carrion had time to realize the last quip had meant something other than its basest meaning. Being larger and more experienced, Starscream always has the upper hand in bedroom athletics, but the younger jet makes up for his lack of proficiency with willing energy.

Pressing him against the wall, Starscream exercises his flexibility and superior reach, using one hand to pin Carrion’s wrists above his head while the claws of the other glide teasingly over the layered armor of his neck, grazing the curve of his shoulder before sliding down his chest. Carrion isn’t even sure when they’d found their way to the floor, but he’s kind of glad they have; the sensation of his Commander’s claws slipping into the sensitive seams of his armor make his processor haze with static. He doesn’t think he’d be able to keep himself on his feet like this.

A low sound eases its way out of his vocals when the larger seeker bows his head and traces his glossa along the seam that flows from beneath Carrion’s optic to his mouth. It’s gross, he thinks, but in a kind of nice way, and the way Starscream kisses him forces away any thought of complaining.

Except, as much as he’s enjoying himself (and he is, folks, we can be sure of that), the pull of his damaged arm over his head is becoming increasingly unpleasant, becoming down right agonizing, and he can’t help squirming against the hands holding and caressing him. When Starscream at last backs off a little, the smaller jet manages to mumble “arm… _hurts_ ,” for all the good it does.

Smirking, the older mech puts a little more strain on the captured limbs before relaxing, keeping only the hastily repaired arm in his grip. It’s truly a testament to Carrion’s talent that the limb is functioning well enough to even feel pain, considering that only an hour ago it had been shot clean off and looked, to Starscream at least, like scrap. Stubborn as always, Carrion made repairs right there on the field, under fire. Dangerous, stupid, unnecessary; his actions had been exactly what Starscream called them, which by no means meant he was going to give the old jet the satisfaction of admitting it.

“Whose fault is that, hmm?” the larger mech asks, moving his teasing claws from Carrion’s thigh to the ruin of his arm. Carrion fights against the way his body wants to twitch and hitch at the contact, but some things cannot be helped. Talons carefully trace torn metal, brush clipped circuits and wires, neither hurting nor pleasing, silently promising either agony or pleasure. The glint in Starscream’s optics makes the smaller jet whine and try futilely to pull out of that grip, but there is no escape.

Claws tear over a severed circuit, sending a flame of pain through Carrion’s body; the sound the young jet makes seems to pull a wider smile to Starscream’s face. With a twist and a tug, the Commander pulls back the poorly welded armor that hides the hastily repaired wiring of the arm. Offering another little whine, this one less controlled than any of the other sounds the young jet has yet allowed to escape, Carrion arches his back and gives up his attempts to pull away, instead twisting his head to watch as the larger flier curls close over him even as he draws the wounded limb in toward himself.

Every raw servo and wire lights in sympathetic agony as Starscream presses his mouth against the most severe of the splits in the plating. The gesture is something between a kiss and a bite, mouth opening and his denta closing on some uneven edge that makes Carrion spasm despite himself. And it should be horrible; he should feel degraded and angry and hurt to be treated so, but the real problem is that he doesn’t feel those things to any real capacity. They’re there, like the shadows of ideas; thoughts he knows he should be having, but they aren’t at the forefront where he needs them.

Instead, he is in a strange way enjoying this. Yes, he’s trapped; yes, Starscream is stronger than him… Starscream is cruel and violent and powerful, and it’s scary in a vague way. But he can’t help but think, as the larger jet works his mangled arm over with denta and claw, of how that strength and power and crazy maniacal capability could be used for him, against their enemies. Starscream could rip the spark from another mech’s chest without flickering an optic. He knew more about torture that was probably strictly healthy.

Being pinned under his claws was almost an honor; like being reminded of how strong his mate was and how easily he could flick Carrion aside. Starscream can protect him as easily as he can rip him to pieces, and that’s what makes this so perfectly okay.

Denta snap closed on a thin hose and the young Decepticon feels the hot rush of his own energon spilling down the exposed infrastructure of his arm. It’s disgustingly agonizing, and he gives a soft cry of pain, the expulsion hitching like a sob as his optics flicker and dim. Something in that general area pinches and after a moment the heat fades to a dull ache, the cable flattened to a seal, so as to prevent an extraneous waste of energon. Even like this, Starscream has the sense not to be overly profligate. When his Commander’s face hovers into view, a thin smear of energon colors the metal at both corners of his mouth, thin rivulets running toward his jawline.

It’s revolting and obscene; forget about it being Carrion’s own lifeblood running down his lover’s face for a moment and consider simply that Starscream would deign be so primitive – it’s really almost brutish – to bite him that way.

Even still, there is something Carrion finds undeniably attractive about seeing his mate this way. Perhaps part of it _is_ that he knows the energon once flowed through his systems; he is ever willing to bleed for the pleasure of his bonded, and seeing it on Starscream’s face seems rather appropriate for all its wrongness. Beyond that, there is the smug grin, an expression that makes Carrion bare his denta in a grimace despite how it excites him – he will fight against a smile every time he sees the older mech smirk thus. It is so self-satisfied, so superior; it’s a look Carrion loves, and hates to admit it.

A claw works under a bundle of cables; wires that pass neural information from his possessor down to his hand, and vice versa, from sensitive claws back to CPU.  In a way, they serve much the same function as nerves and tendons would a human, and as such, when Starscream puts strain on them, Carrion’s battered arm sends out blaring pain signals, and his claws twitch against his will. He grits his denta and curls his talons against the scream that is almost shocked out of him.

“I am forced to wonder,” the larger jet growls, narrowed optics bright on the stressed cables under claw, “if you simply did not hear my command to retreat, or if you chose to ignore me.” That dangerous gaze switched from arm to Carrion’s face, brooking none of the foolish babble the young seeker might otherwise have uttered. “One is sheer stupidity, while the other is direct disobedience.”

He let the words hang for a moment, watching the smaller mech’s face. They both knew the answer to the unasked question, just as they both new that Carrion’s stubborn insubordination would not be disciplined to the extent it ought. All the same, there was a game that demanded playing, and neither of them would miss it for anything.

As the silence drew longer and Carrion seemed to be preparing to speak, Starscream sawed his claw against the wires in his grip, ruining any words than might have been formed as the youth cried out in once again verb-less agony. There was no question of taking this too far, for he was the Commander and Carrion his soldier, and he knew from decades of experimentation how far to push. “Either way, you deserve punishment.”

Releasing the cables that have already been so abused, Starscream wraps his claws around Carrion’s more solid upper arm. Even here the armor is torn and dented thin, almost useless; it tears when Starscream gives the slightest wrench to the limb, and Carrion whines more out of anticipation than actual pain. Just above where he’s gripping is the thick line of unfinished soldering holding the infrastructure of the arm together. If he applies enough pressure, it would be all too easy to break the limb right back off, and he says enough.

“Why shouldn’t I,” he adds, his voice hissing through the dark, close in the confines of Carrion’s quarters but not within kissing distance. “What better punishment can you think of?”

Carrion has more than a few suggestions, some of which he’s not even sure they can physically accomplish (but he would absolutely love trying), but what he says instead is, “The _only_ punishment you could manage is _stopping_.”

All at once the distance between them is closed, Starscream kissing him so hard it’s like biting, like a new kind of fighting, and Carrion indulges readily, hungry for it. Even with the sweet pain from his wounded arm racing through him, his chest plates slide eagerly open as his Commander runs a claw between them, exposing his spark chamber. He can tell even without the link of their bond that the foreplay, if that was what they were going to call the act leading up to this, was over.

He gasps in spite of himself when Starscream’s fingers brush against the parting gates, slowly opening to expose his bare spark. The older jet liked to tease Carrion for his eagerness in the berth, but he was the same way more often than not, just more capable of shutting down his impulses. Through their bond, Carrion could _feel_ the other’s desire to through finesse to the wind and simply claim him. It made him shiver beneath the bulkier frame, his glossa running over his denta in anticipation, knowing Starscream would never give in to that baser side. Wishing, if only a little, that he would.

It’s fast and hard, dirty and imprecise; the kind of interfacing that’s only partially about taking pleasure and all about reassuring the pair that the other is really there, really functioning. Really whole, for a given value of whole.

Starscream exposes his own spark and curls over Carrion, cleaving against him as soon as their sparks brush, and just like that there is no individual, no self; there’s just the bond and their singular, perfect spark. They give up, just for a few moments, on being Commander and soldier, on superior and subordinate, and indulge for a few kliks in being this.

And it _is_ an indulgence, one neither can allow for too long, too wrapped up in ego and duty to take much time in these special moments. But while they’re here, this is _everything_ , and they burrow into one another like each wants to take up residence in the other.

Rocking together, Starscream hits his surge first, forcing the overflow of energy back into Carrion, watching the way the smaller ‘Con shudders at the torrent of feedback flooding his system. He breaks contact just before Carrion hits his own climax, making him whine, digging those sensitive servos of his good hand against his Commander’s back, trying to force him to stay close.

Sitting back and dragging that hand away from his wings, Starscream presses an oddly delicate kiss to Carrion’s knuckles, watching the younger jet writhe and groan, riding out the overflow of energy coursing through him.

“Tend to your wounds, _medic_ ,” he growls, pushing away to stand over the younger Decepticon. “I want you in optimum condition within the solar cycle.”

“Big plans, Commander,” Carrion purrs, vocals breathy and overtly pleased with himself. “Big plans for the war, or just for me?”

“Just make yourself ready.”

With that, Starscream swept from the room, leaving Carrion alone and sweetly aching.


End file.
